Nico Muhly - Speaks Volumes

Speaks Volumes doesn’t sound like most classical records. It is not an idealized version of live musical performance or a substitute for the authentic live experience. It is not an intended to conform the nineteenth-century experience of classical music. Speaks Volumes was approached from a different direction. Sigurðsson’s recording and production doesn’t sit back and let the music sweep the listener away emotionally; it leans forward in exacting scrutiny and urges the listener to pay attention.Several of the track titles on the album such as “It Goes Without Saying”, “Keep In Touch”, “Honest Music”, “Clear Music” describe an attempt to communicate. For instance, “Clear Music” could describe the transparency of the piece’s musical texture, but it could also refer to the insistency with which its musical ideas are put forward. It attempts to “make itself clear”. The flattest surface, the merest gesture, even the deepest silence Speaks Volumes.